Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 2.djvu/150

 convent or a monastery. To the west, and about fifty yards distant, are ruins of stone and good white mortar, probably procured by burning the limestone rock. The annexed ground plan will give an idea of these interesting remains, which are said to be those of a Christian house of worship. In some parts the walls are still 10 feet high, and they show an extent of civilisation now completely beyond the Warsingali. It may be remarked of them that the direction of the niche, as well as the disposition of the building, would denote a Moslem mosque. At the same time it must be remembered that the churches of the Eastern Christians are almost always made to front Jerusalem, and the Gallas being a Moslem and Christian race, the sects would borrow their architecture from each other. The people assert these ruins to be those of Nazarenes. Yet in the Jid Ali valley of the Dulbahantas Lieutenant Speke found similar remains, which the natives declared to be one of their forefathers' mosques; the plan and the direction were the same as those now described. Nothing, however, is easier than to convert St. Sophia into the Aya Sufiyyah mosque. Moreover, at Jid Ali, the traveller found it still the custom of the people to erect a Mala, or cross of stone or wood covered with plaster, at the head and foot of every tomb. [Illustration] The Dulbahantas, when asked about these crosses, said it was their custom, derived from sire and grandsire. This again would argue that a Christian people once inhabited these now benighted lands. North of the building now described is a cemetery, in which the Somal still bury their dead. Here